Imaginary Archipelago
The islands from old sketchbooks re-emerged on arrival to Turku after looking at all the maps of the Archipelago, it seemed like these drawings had been lying dormant waiting for me to come here. They now actually seem to make some sense, where as before they were almost an exercise in composition, randomness and mark making. I won’t go into this too much here as I think it’s worth an essay or two, instead I drew a diagram to explain all the connections that seem to have come together.
Diagram to explain current thought processes 11/11/08.
In the first week I have barely been in Turku as we decided to take a trip out to the Archipelago, taking a ferry all the way to Utö on the edge of the Baltic and the Archipelago sea. The trip has not only given me a lot of video to edit (a short film of the ferry journey is already half finished) but a hell of a lot to think about… see diagram, above. Below is a quick edit of some of the footage from the actual island just to give an impression of the place.
Exploring Utö on the edge of the Finnish Archipelago, November 2008.
Utö is a tiny island less than 2km across and a 5 hour ferry journey from Nauvo, which itself is an island an hour from Turku. It is remote but inhabited by around 30 people during the off season who are all supplied with wireless internet by the lighthouse. Utö used to be an important military outpost is now mostly a tourist destination, the numbers swell to around 300 during the summertime as many people own summer houses here in the islands.
This was filmed when the weather was bleak, I only had a couple of minutes of tape, the battery was dying and we needed to catch the ferry soon.
